Soul Speaks : Lasting Legacy

The year I filmed my own podcast launch (it tested everything I teach)

• Laura Beddoe- Collins I Unconscious Mind Expert and Speak to Sell Strategist • Season 1 • Episode 1

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This October marks our third year of Soul Speaks, my flagship event. This year we welcomed 200 guests, with headliners Roxie Nafousi, Nick James, Lisa Johnson, and Amy Atkinson. 

As an events host, people see the polished version. The stage, the lighting, the applause.

At the start of this year, I made a decision. Film all of it.

Not the highlight reel. The real one. The one where the methodology I teach every single day got tested in real time, with real stakes, building toward a room of 200 founders.

This episode is the behind the scenes of everything that led up to that room. The rebrand. The podcast launch. The months of building. The moment I realised I'd been undercharging by thousands, and what it took to change that. The night I sat in front of a blank screen at midnight wondering if I'd lost the plot, and showed up anyway.

Both things were true this year. It was the hardest and the most aligned I've ever felt.

If you're a founder who knows your voice is your most powerful asset and you're ready to use it at the level you're capable of, this is for you.

See you in episode two.

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SPEAKER_03

So I wanted to start by saying I'm just blown away by the calibre of women that is in this room. Honestly. Today we are gonna be obviously talking on the podcast about building a lasting legacy, and every single one of us here is fucking doing that.

SPEAKER_02

Lasting legacy!

SPEAKER_03

Like I am the first, like thinking about that, I am the first of so many things, and my daughter, the life that she gets because I've done the inner work is it it it I don't want to cry. It's beautiful. It is beautiful. I have to make sacrifices in my life sometimes for it to be a success. Like today, for instance, I have taken time out of my business to drive an hour and a half to go and interview Matt, and that meant that I couldn't pick my daughter up from school today. I have to bring always bring myself back to why, and believe me, and I'm sure lots of you can agree, this year there's been a lot of moments for me where I have thought, why don't I just go and get a job? It's easier, but then I remember why I'm doing it. It isn't just sipping champagne on yachts or going to these luxury retreats or hosting these bougie events. There is sacrifices that I make all of the time for my business. Well, my business is just so important to me.

SPEAKER_00

More important than your mum.

SPEAKER_03

And yeah, giving you like this behind-the-scenes stuff that I don't usually share about feeling nervous and being scattery and making mistakes because I really want to give people the wheel behind success. I think that we get a highlight wheel and freaking boring, isn't it? Getting a highlight wheel of somebody, you know, sipping champagne on a buddy. And I think that's what we led to believe that the entrepreneurial landscape now looks like, and it isn't. Okay, let's start from the beginning, shall we? I started this documentary because I wanted to celebrate the company, the rebranding, the women that I've worked with over the years. The version of this business that finally and completely unapologetically feels like me. Also, you're gonna have a little bit of fun.

SPEAKER_02

Who's up for that lady's comment?

SPEAKER_03

And then life happened in ways that I could not have scripted. What you're about to watch is behind the scenes of this year. Just six months of my life. The year that I launched SoulSpeak's Lasting Legacy, the year I rebranded, the year that I created this podcast. And it has also been one of the hardest personal years of my entire life. I want to start by talking about something I hardly ever see women say on camera. Building something extraordinary, something that genuinely changes lives, does not always look extraordinary from the inside. And for me, this year, and I know for so many others, it can mean multitasking. Sometimes it looks like sitting in a hospital corridor trying to answer emails, wondering if today is the day that you have to make the most impossible decision of your life. And sometimes in that very same week, it looks like standing on stages in front of hundreds of people and delivering the best talks of your career. And that's the story I'm here to tell you. Not the highlight reel, the whole thing. Hi, I'm Laura Beddo-Collins. I'm an unconscious mind expert, a speak-to-sell strategist, and a superconnector. And I've built over my years a community of 21,000 founders. And right now, in this moment, I'm also a woman who is still waiting for her ADHD diagnosis and navigating life with PMDD in a business world that was designed fundamentally by men for men. So how did I get here? I grew up in a middle class family. My mum worked in care homes and my dad works for Tesco. I have always been that little girl dreaming of being on the stage. I was that little girl that couldn't sit still, who didn't fit in, who was told in a hundred different ways by a hundred different systems that the way her brain worked was a problem to be managed. And I learned really early to put my head down and work. Not because somebody told me to, because work was the place where the chaos in my head became something where I made sense. So for me, all of my life, I was sort of seen as I've always been really ambitious. I have worked for corporate companies and I actually at the age of 24 worked in an office with 27 men with just me. I was always seen as the eye candy of the office. I was closing six-figure deals, but just never taken seriously. And I just adopted that. People don't take me seriously. So I really had to I had to learn how to take myself seriously first. And it wasn't a short process for me. I remember sitting at a desk in a job I was brilliant at, regularly top of the leaderboard, hitting every KPI, and feeling like I was slowly suffocating. Not because I wasn't good enough, but because the system I was inside of was never built for somebody like me. And at that time I was carrying things that nobody at work knew about. Loss, grief, things happening in my personal life that I had to park at the door every single morning and just pretend that they weren't there. And then came the moment that changed everything. The reason that I'm sitting here now. And I remember reading that email and feeling something inside of me shift. Not rage, something quieter than that. A decision. And I've had to work really hard to find my voice again. This really underpins everything that I do within my business and the reason that I show up and do what I do. I want to start by talking about something that I'm genuinely fed up with in this industry. This idea, this persistent, exhausting, damaging idea that women can do it all. As a millennial woman, it was beaten into me that we can do it all. And I believe that today, that is why so many women carry this chain that follows you around when you can't. And I tried, trust me. Nobody talks about what it costs. Nobody talks about the days where you're running a summit for 400 founders while your nervous system is screaming, where your body is telling you to stop, and the calendar says absolutely not. This year I ran my third annual Global Summit in March, where we call in 400 founders from all over the world. We also have 20 world-class speakers with a combination of 20 million in revenue. Every year I run it, it is the most stressful but also fulfilling part of the year. It's the biggest event in my calendar. And at the same time, my mum was in a coma on life support. I remember being on a call with a speaker, running through their slides, and having to excuse myself to take a call from the hospital and then getting straight back on. Because what else can you do?

SPEAKER_00

What do you mean by that? What else do you do?

SPEAKER_03

Well, my business is just so important to me.

SPEAKER_00

More important than your mum?

SPEAKER_03

Not more important than my mum because I was able to sit with her by her bedside the whole time. Of course, have I have good family that also stepped in. This is not me sharing hustle culture. This is what it looks like to have built something with foundations deep enough to hold you when the ground gives way. I've gone, I've undiagnosed ADHD all at that time. Yeah. I don't want to cry.

SPEAKER_01

And it is, it's like gaslighting yourself. You bully yourself, it's horrible. I bullied myself all my life, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. You're a prisoner of your own mind.

SPEAKER_03

Let's talk about my ADHD. Let's talk about my ADHD. It's a fucking pain in the arse. There we go. Boom. I can't remember the question.

SPEAKER_02

What is your top tip to for a woman who's looking to be more visible, more brave, more bold? Oh, can you come back to me?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Seven o'clock.

SPEAKER_02

By all means.

SPEAKER_03

But most of the time I like in my head, I'm I'll think to someone, I'll think, I'm like, okay, and I'll like I want to butt in, but I'm like, I actually have to talk to myself, but then I then I'm not listening to what they're saying because I'm trying to not butt in, and then I'll just be nodding, and that I won't be listening to anything that they're saying, and then they'll ask me a question, and then I'll be like, I'm really sorry, I didn't hear what you said. I'm really honest though, and that's not always great because it does offend people that don't understand that I'm neurodiverse. So I am still waiting for my formal ADHD diagnosis, still filling in forms in between client calls, still navigating a system that was clearly not designed with people like me in mind, which is honestly completely on brand. Because this is what ADHD looks like when you're running a business. It looks like leaving things to the last minute and somehow delivering anyway. Getting lost on the way to events that you've even been to before, losing things in front of clients, starting four things at once and finishing all of them, but not in the order anyone expected. It looks like walking into a room full of seven-figure entrepreneurs and having a split second of thinking, who am I to be here? And then because of the inner work, because of the years of recoding what I believe about myself, something else kicks in. Who am I not to be here? I have my answer. You ready? Yes, she's ready. So every single one of you in this room will have one person that springs to mind around why you're not doing the thing, why you're not going live, why you're not posting, why you're not sitting on this stage. Everybody got that person in their mind? Probably one person. That one person, are they worth blocking you from all of the success that you are so worthy of? Because every single one of you in this room, whether you're on day one or year 10, can make a difference. And it's just through overcoming and thinking, is this one person worth all of the other thousands? And I mean, I've built an amazing platform, thousands and thousands of women, and there was one person who was actually my ex-boyfriend. Can you imagine if I if I let that stop me? All of the women's lives that I've changed already, and all of you can do that too. I'm here for the rebels, the disruptors, the change makers, the ones that have been told their whole lives that the way that they think is a problem, that they are too much or not enough, and that they need to fit into a system before they're taken seriously. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. You're not wrong now, are you?

SPEAKER_03

That that is they needed someone to go first. They needed my weirdness to show them what's possible. And I have stopped apologising for that. Hey Laura, so what are we doing your makeup for today? So today we are going to a photo shoot at Confidence magazine, which is run by Alif Cose. And this edition is specifically around building your legacy. And for me, it's so important for female founders to really step into that confidence. And most people think that confidence is something that you're born with, but really confidence is something that you can learn. Confidence is really a choice. And amongst all of that, I live with PMDD, premenstrual dysphoric disorder. This is not a bad mood. This isn't your general PMS. This is a clinically recognized condition where every single month my internal world is basically out of control. I struggle with mood swings, I sometimes can feel depressed, I get complete loss of executive function and the feeling that everything I've built belongs to somebody else. Imposter syndrome. Not because I wanted a job, because there was a voice in my head, a voice that can be relentless, specific, cruel, telling me that I'm not good enough, that I am a fraud, that I should give up before somebody else figures it out. And lo and behold, two days later, my period arrived, and I realized that I'd forgotten to track my cycle. Something that for many years I used to teach. Because life had been so full, that one practice protecting me had slipped. That is PMDD. That is the reality, millions of women are navigating right now in boardrooms, on stages, on the best days of their careers, completely alone and in silence. And here's the thing about the rule book: it wasn't written for me. It wasn't written for most of the women that I work with either. So I decided to write a new one. I'm gonna take a moment and I'm gonna do something a little bit thicker than you.

SPEAKER_02

So I'd like to start with asking you all if you feel good and safe to do so and close your time.

SPEAKER_03

So there's another idea that I want to dismantle whilst we're here. This notion that to be spiritual and a leader, to talk about energy and the unconscious mind and the deeper work that you have to be in this soft girl era. Almost like you're lying in a hammock full of spaciousness, utterly unbothered, that you make the vision board and it's all just going to come and land on your lap. You see, I am a deeply spiritual person. I do this work every day to make sure that I'm not completely bonkers. And I believe with everything that I have that the inner world is where the transformation actually happens. And I have built this movement that has taken at times blood, sweat, and tears. Sitting on my laptop at 10 o'clock at night, getting up and doing it again. And those two things are not in conflict. The depth of the inner work is precisely what made this all possible. I remember when I was designing the Soul Speaks Rebrands this year, the new visual identity, the podcast concept, the premiere event, there were moments of complete creative flow, and then there were moments of sitting in front of my blank screen at midnight, wondering if I was completely out of my mind. This is not the absence of spiritual practice. That is the spiritual practice meeting real life. Somebody once said to me, Laura, you break through glass ceilings. But the best part is that you pull everybody up with you. And I also want to talk about money. Because I've wasted years, years believing that wanting it meant something was wrong with me, that wealth and soul work couldn't coexist, that if I was truly here to serve, the money would be secondary. And that belief kept me small and undercharging for far too long. I remember the moment it cracked open. I was charging £70 an hour, and to me, coming from a telecoms background, working at £15 an hour before tax, that actually felt incredible. I thought I was doing well, and then I saw somebody that I idolized prices. I remember nearly spitting out my tea, and I sat there thinking, I have more qualifications, more experience, more results. Am I actually charging my worth? And that question changed everything for me. I did the work, real deep, uncomfortable identity work, on what I believed I deserved and what kind of person gets to build wealth. And that's when the business changed. I have built with a very small team a multi-six-figure company, a client portfolio that includes celebrities, influencers, and some of the most high-profile business owners in the UK. And I did that not despite of who I am, but because of who I am. Even today, I still have days when I doubt myself. I still catch the old stories, the ones that tell me that it won't last, that I got lucky, that someone is about to work out that I don't deserve it. The difference now is I know that that's not the truth. I know that it's a pattern and I know how to work with it. The subconscious recoding, the somatic practice, the inner work that I do daily instead of being run by it. That distinction between being in the pattern and being run by it is the whole frickin' game. I took my pain and I found my purpose, and I built a business from my passion that now generates real lasting profit. That is available to you too, but it needs to start inside. It always starts inside. Go and drive up to do a live podcast interview, and I'm not gonna lie, I'm feeling really nervous today. I don't usually get really nervous before I interview somebody, but today the the butterflies, all of it is going on, and I'm trying to think about why that is, and I believe that it is because I had I was supposed to be interviewing two people, and then one of them well, actually, I was supposed to be interviewing three people at the same time, and then two of those people unfortunately haven't been able to make it. So then it's gonna have a lot of time for me in the studio by myself. Just interviewed Matt Hall, and the interview was incredible. We explored his business, we explored the real highs of his business over the last two decades, and we also looked at where he struggles in relationships, and oh, it's such a juicy episode. I cannot wait to I just feel so excited this year about taking the podcast to the next level. So people often ask me why I chose a podcast, why I chose a documentary instead of a book. And the answer is simple. My voice is the asset. Not the words on a page, not the perfectly created caption, not the polished LinkedIn post that sounds like every other polished LinkedIn post, but the voice. The actual living, breathing, unfiltered voice. The voice carries what the words alone never can. It carries conviction, it carries experience, it carries the thing that makes someone stop scrolling and actually listen. Your voice is not a tool for delivering your message. Your voice is the message. I started this year with an intention. I wanted to take you behind the scenes, not the highlight reel, not the version I polished for the stage, the real thing, what it actually takes to build something that matters from the inside out. I had absolutely no idea how behind the scenes it was gonna get. Life has a way of doing that, of taking the thing that you said that you were going to teach, the methodology, the framework, the practice, and putting it to the absolute test. This year has tested mine in ways that I didn't plan for and I could never have prepared for. And what I found on the other side of the hardest months of my life is what episode two is all about. But before you go there, I want to leave you with the thing that sits at the centre of everything that I do. The reason that this podcast exists. The reason that I chose a microphone over a manuscript. You matter. Your voice matters. Even when it trembles, especially when it trembles. See you in episode two.